Dennis Romboy
By Dennis Romboy
Dennis is a longtime reporter and editor at the Deseret News. He often writes about the intersection of sports and culture.

SALT LAKE CITY — A former secretary for a Murray painting contractor funneled more than a $1 million in customer payments into a personal account, according to a federal indictment.

Pamela Jane Madsen is charged in U.S. District Court with five counts of mail fraud and four counts of money laundering. Madsen worked for Professional Painting Inc., where her duties included payroll, data entry and preparing checks for deposit.

Prosecutors say Madsen created an account at U.S. Bank in November 2007 under a slight variation of her employer's name. For the next three years, she deposited customers' checks totaling at least $1.3 million into the account for her personal use, according to the indictment.

Madsen credited customers' accounts on the company's books to make it look like they had paid their bills, according to the indictment. Some of the checks came from two of the state largest general contractors, Jacobsen Construction and Big-D Construction.

The indictment seeks to seize from Madsen two pickup trucks, a BMW sedan, two snowmobiles and homes in Bluffdale and Taylorsville.

— Dennis Romboy

Twitter: dennisromboy

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